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I was talking about the original mod since I think that is where you can see the creator's original intentions and how much responsibility they have over the existence of cruelty in the game, and the fact that survival is only the premise, not the core of the experience. As said in the article, if anything their removal of the bandit/civilian distinction makes it even more dangerous to trust people. That is probably why they changed it.

There have been other, several-part articles about people who play DayZ in different ways, like this one. Here's the thing, have any of you actually played the game? Because I feel like you don't understand it at all. I have been killed mercilessly dozens of times, and it's never a psychologically damaging experience, nothing even close to middle school bullying. It's the whole "kill or be killed" any apocalypse media entails. Some people are dicks, other people aren't. Figuring out who is what and what you are is what is fun about the game. To you bandits might seem like school bullies, to most 'bambis' they feel like someone passing by in a Ferrari or bumping into you when walking down the street. Fresh spawns have nothing to lose, when they get killed they respawn, when they get hurt they can just kill themselves. There's no penalty for them. Having bandits being bandits means there's an antagonist, something to be wary of other than the piss poor AI zombies which are hardly anything more than a slight annoyance. Again, it's what makes the game what it is. You can disagree as much as you like and paint as many analogies as you wish, but it doesn't make it wrong.

Here's the thing, have any of you actually played the game? Because I feel like you don't understand it at all.

No. Because, and you seem to have a lot of trouble understanding this regardless of the number of times I've said it, I'm not criticising the game, I'm criticising the decision to commission this article. Because this is the RPS Feedback Thread, and not the Day Z thread.

Now if you're telling me the game is nothing like it is portrayed in the article, to the point that reading said article leads me to fundamentally misunderstand the game, then I guess you can at least agree it was a bad commission, which is all I'm arguing here.

The game commonly plays out exactly as it is portrayed in the article, so condemning an article because it is honest about how a game plays is just ludicrous. All the stuff you find censurable is an intrinsic part of the DayZ experience, and DayZ is a ridiculously popular game. You are misunderstanding it because you clearly haven't played it and you aren't open to what it entails. Which is ok, it just doesn't make your feedback all that helpful. As I said in what feels like eons ago, you have a negative opinion that comes from a position of ignorance and rarely goes beyond stating your discomfort, which is hardly constructive imho.

You are misunderstanding it because you clearly haven't played it and you aren't open to what it entails. Which is ok, it just doesn't make your feedback all that helpful.

My feedback on the game, sure. My feedback on the article is entirely valid though. Which is what I'm offering. Unless you're suggesting the article was written only for people who have already played the game. Who will inevitably be a minority of the total readers on the site, regardless of how popular the game is. You're actually coming at the article with additional knowledge that the majority of readers will not have. So I'd in fact argue that it's your position of knowledge about the game that in fact renders your feedback not very helpful.

Sure, I'll take you at your word that there's a greater context for the article, one that I would understand and comprehend better if I had actually played the game, and then I wouldn't find the sort of activities outlined in the article so bothersome. But given the article doesn't create that context for the reader itself, it instead reads to me and others as a celebration of bullying and being a dick to people.

Your argument of 'if you played the game, you'd understand why it was necessary and not as a bad as it sounds' is fine as a defense of the game, and indeed as a defense of the writer as a person and his actions as detailed in the article. But I'm not attacking either of those. I'm attacking the article itself, as a piece of journalism. Because to me, as a gamer who hasn't played Day Z, it reads as a celebration of some very unpleasant behaviour.

Sure, I can accept, based on your word, that it's not. That there's more to it that I'd get if I had played the game. But that doesn't stop it failing as a article, because the article itself does not get those facts across.

I've been unable to post comments on articles for three or four days now. I can log in, and I've received no messages or emails about being silenced or banned (and based on my posting history, I don't see why I would), but when I submit a comment, the page simply reloads without adding my contribution to the discussion. Message content doesn't seem to have any impact on the results.

Does this sound familiar to any of you, and if so, could you please tell me how you resolved the issue? In case any staff are reading this, my username on RPS is the same as it is here (JanusForbeare). Thanks in advance.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

Hi, I wanted to send this to contact@rockpapershotgun.com but that e-mail is bouncing because of an inbox full error. So I thought this might be the best place to for it.

___

I'm a long-time reader, first time writer. I enjoy RPS tremendously, I feel like the blog keeps me in touch with the aspects of gaming that I care most about and it's nice to have that voice in my daily internet diet.

I was recently struck by Rich Stanton's excellent review of Strider. Every once in a while RPS posts something to the effect of "Stop everything and buy this game right now!" I love that when something strikes the RPS staff that way they aren't afraid to call it as they see it. I enjoy taking that advice and have never, ever been disappointed. My most recent game purchase, in fact, was Descent, in response to John Walker's post about it. And wow was that a good buy. I hope that's a game you'll write more about soon. The way that title has held up, exactly as it is, retro-pixellated graphics and all, is worthy of some real consideration.

But Strider... Strider was perhaps the first bum steer I've ever received from RPS. I have no doubt that the game is fantastic and that I would have a great time playing it. The problem is I can't. The system requirements for the game are absolutely absurd. A 64-bit OS and a DX11 video card, as minimum requirements?! Even Thief, which you covered on the same day, doesn't require that kind of hardware.

Now a 64-bit OS and a DX11 video card isn't that outrageous in 2014, but I haven't done any major updates to my gaming rig in about 6 years and I've been quite proud of the fact that it's been doing just fine on the lighter indie fare that has been catching my attention these days... the kinds of things RPS does its most interesting writing about. So I was saddened yesterday, when I read Rich's review at work in the morning and spent the whole day looking forward to getting home and experiencing another great recommendation from RPS only to discover that I had spend $15 on four gigs of unusable game files.

Now, I don't blame RPS, or Rich. I actually even looked at the system requirements before purchasing and thought "That's outrageous, even today's AAA blockbusters don't have those kind of sys. reqs., publishers post nonsense here all the time, I'm sure it will be fine." But it wasn't. I'm going to check with Valve to see about a refund, but I wanted to let you know that this happened.

On a review so overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic it may be worthwhile to include a note pointing out that the system requirements are wildly out of sync with other games of that genre and pricepoint. Looking around the internet, it doesn't look like I was the only one to step into this particular pothole.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. I hope you all will keep up the good work. I will definitely keep reading.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

Can we recommend to the RPS guys that, insead of deleteing offensive comments on the blog (which messes up the threading of the replies, and all later replies), they instead edit the comment and replace it with something like:
[Comment deleted for (stupidity) - RPS] ?

JanusForbeare: it looks like you were banned for spamming. I've unbanned, but beware you will be banned again if anything dodgy occurs.

Thank you for taking care of that. (EDIT: It turns out that I'm still unable to post comments. I'll try again tomorrow in case there's been a delay somewhere, but I thought I'd bring it up now while the issue is still fresh.)

Would it be possible to PM me a link to the offending post? To the best of my knowledge, I never re-posted the same message more than once, nor did I link to any products, or do anything else that could be considered spam. I'm more than a little curious how this came about.

Last edited by JanusForbeare; 28-02-2014 at 01:32 AM.
Reason: Problem not yet resolved

Small little nit pick here. People with long user names like "Malawi Frontier Guard" end up causing the info in the "Last Post" column to get clipped. Can that be extended a little bit? Just looks a bit naff

"Halo is designed to make the player think "I look like that, I am macho sitting in my undies with my xbox""

Small little nit pick here. People with long user names like "Malawi Frontier Guard" end up causing the info in the "Last Post" column to get clipped. Can that be extended a little bit? Just looks a bit naff

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

Just wanted to chime in and say that I'm still waiting to be unbanned from comment posting... as well as for someone to point out the offending post. It's beginning to get a little frustrating, since I have no idea what (if anything) I did wrong. I would expect that, like most message boards, the mod responsible registered the specific post that caused the ban. I would really, really appreciate someone verifying that this wasn't a mistake, and giving me a bit more info on this matter.

Just wanted to chime in and say that I'm still waiting to be unbanned from comment posting... as well as for someone to point out the offending post. It's beginning to get a little frustrating, since I have no idea what (if anything) I did wrong. I would expect that, like most message boards, the mod responsible registered the specific post that caused the ban. I would really, really appreciate someone verifying that this wasn't a mistake, and giving me a bit more info on this matter.

This is a lo-fi solution, but comment bans on RPS are generally down to email address or IP address restrictions. Do you have an alternative email address you can register with, perhaps?